After decades quarrying, fabricating and supplying stone facades, Hugo Vega, Vice President of Sales at Polycor, noticed that the architects he was calling on were lacking a thin stone veneer that was light enough and strong enough for cladding large-scale architectural projects. After some R&D within the company, Polycor went on to release its 1 cm reinforced slabs and Vega returned to his architects in triumph. Only their response was, “That’s great, but we need a way to hang it.”
“The 1 cm product was a great innovation, but there was no way to apply it quickly and easily on large-scale projects,” Vega said.
Beraz, Polycor taldea garapenean sartu zen berriro.
Bien bitartean, beste erantzun bat zabaltzen hasi zen A&D munduan. Vegarentzat apur bat harrituta, 1 cm-ko lauzaren salmentak bizitegi-merkatuan hasi ziren, non diseinatzaileek eta haien bezeroek dutxetan hormak, lauza osoko bizkarrezurra eta josturarik gabeko tximinia bertikalak sartzeko aukera izan zuten. (Diseinu horiek ikus ditzakezu lookbook honetan.) Tratzen ari ziren ohiko 3 cm-ko materialaren pisuaren heren batean, fabrikatzaileek ez zuten jada bizkarra apurtzen mostrador baten gainean lauza osoa muskulatzeko bizkarraldea jartzeko. Malgutasun-erresistentzia 10 aldiz (bere polikarbonatozko konposite-euskarri esker) desagertu zen tximiniaren bertikalki orientatutako xaflak instalatzean pitzatuko zirelako kezka.
Bizitegi-merkatua harri meherako zegoen ontzian.

Ultra-meheko xafla jarraitu batetik fabrikatutako backsplash baten adibidea Txeroki amerikar marmol zuria.
That was great news, but Vega’s customers are typically working on commercial, not residential, specifications. So he continued to mull over this problem of adhering thin stone cladding to the exteriors of architectural projects. From time to time he would bump into the team from eclad at job sites where thicker panels of Polycor marble and granite were being installed with existing eclad systems, structural supports laid over existing facades in a modular fashion. A world leader in stone cladding systems, eclad has been creating and refining cladding systems since the 1990s. They too were seeing the same need in the market as the Polycor team – a fast and efficient way to clad with ultra-thin slabs. And so together the companies decided it was time to team up to bring a comprehensive thin stone cladding system to market.
Garatu zutena denbora, lana eta dirua aurrezten dituen sistema bateratu bat da: Eclad 1.

Ultra-mehea Granito beltza amerikarra flotatzen agertzen da, Eclad 1 egitura ikusezinaren euskarrian.
Diseinu berria aluminiozko sareta-sistema batean oinarritzen da, 1 cm-ko panelen atzealdean aingura-zuloekin konbinatuta, hain harri mehea erabiltzean ezkutuan egon daitezen. Panelak 9 oin eta 5 oin arteko erabilgarri daude eta oin karratuko sei kilo baino ez dituzte pisatzen batez beste, instalazio prozesua errazagoa izan dadin.
IKASI GEHIAGO HARRIZKO FATXADA SISTEMEI BURUZ

Aingurak ezkutuan geratzen dira oztoporik gabeko gainazale baterako.
Sistema osoak aurrez zulatutako harrizko panel arinak eskaintzen ditu estaldura babesko egitura baten gainean, behin harrizko panel astunak instalatzea errazten duena. Estaldura-sistema tradizionalak harri lodiagoan oinarritzen dira, korapilo, uhal eta klipak astunekin konbinatuta. Eclad 1 instalatzaileekin, lauzak lekuan sartu eta torlojuak aurrez zulatutako zuloetan sartu besterik ez dute.

Eskala txikiko Eclad 1 sistema maketa baten adibidea.
“It’s basically a different way of installing the stone,” Vega said. “With traditional cladding systems, the anchors have to be installed one-by-one. The process is more labor intensive. On average, it’s twice as fast installing panels using the Eclad grid system.”